"Fifty-four percent say they will raise their prices this year. They don't wantto, but most will have to," Tristano said. He added that all eyes will be on McDonald's. As the chain bumps its value offerings from $1 to $1.29, it makes other brands more comfortable to inch up prices as well."

"The damage from a minimum wage hike depends on the overall labor market. If the job market is buoyant, as it is in the fracking boomtown of Williston, N.D., fast-food workers may already make more than $9 an hour. But when the jobless rate is high, as it still is in California and New York, the increase punishes minority youth in particular."

February 15, 2013

The discounting at McDonald's appears to be reaching a new level of intensity. I only follow a tiny fraction of McDonald's twitter accounts but it seems everyone is discountingeverything in addition to spending millions advertising the Dollar Menu. This is just a random sample:

This is good news for McDonald’s. McDonald’s management has wasted
many millions in advertising espresso based drinks and still only sell a
hand full a day. Burger King will weaken their
position by spending their far more precious advertising dollars on
drinks that QSR customers just don’t care about.

February 11, 2013

"The Obama administration warned on Friday that across-the-board spending cuts set to take effect in March may result in furloughing every U.S. meat and poultry inspectorfor two weeks, causing the meat industry to shut down."

February 9, 2013

This article and video reports on analyst Andy Barish's comments about the numberof arrows in McDonald's "quiver". Andy has been covering McDonald's for over adecade and knows the company very well. Usually, when an analyst uses terms like"arrows" it's code for more new products - an endless stream of new products.

McDonald's USA was better than expected at + .9 %. That's very strongconsidering the USA was up 7.8% in January of 2012. Oak Brook is givingcredit to a focus on the Dollar Menu. That's certainty part of it but there wasa massive amount of product discounting going on at a local level in January.There were many local large sandwich two-fer offers, free drinks, etc in various markets. It will be interesting to see how much this sales increasecost Owner/Operators.

February 5, 2013

"McDonald’s COO Tim Fenton said, “Our pipeline for new products is much more robust than it was this time last year. We’ve got over 180 products."Yikes! Can Tim spell slower service times?McDonald's Gives McMuffin Global Makeover:

"The fast food giant, the nation’s second-largest chicken chain, ended 2012 with $4.6 billion in sales — up 14 percent from $4.1 billion a year earlier. The company also opened 96 news stores, four more than the year before."Atlanta Journal - Constitution reports.